'Ali' Play Is 1 More Round With Former Boxing Great

Theater & dance

September 13, 1992|By Patricia O'Haire, New York Daily News

NEW YORK — He was The Greatest, and he let the world know it. He also said he was The Prettiest, and only a few would disagree there. But when he declared he was The Champ, everyone paid attention, because he was.

He was Muhammad Ali, of course, and he was all of the above. Three times heavyweight champion of the world. And if you never saw him in person, or watched him doing what he did better than anyone else in the world - box - get to the Houseman Theater, where a new play called Ali is being staged.

It will take you on a journey through his life, from Louisville, Ky., where he was born, through the Olympics, which he won, to the fights with Sonny Liston, which he won; the U.S. government, which he didn't win; Joe Frazier, which he won and then lost; Leon Spinks, which he lost; and a bunch of characters right out of Palookaville.

It shows the Ali of today as well, a 50-year-old man slowed by Parkinson's syndrome, defending his life with charm and a great deal of wit.

This Ali is a one-man show, performed by Geoffrey C. Ewing and written by Ewing and Graydon Royce. It is absorbing; it had been booked for a limited time at the Houseman, but audience response has been so positive, it may soon move to another theater.

''I don't think I look that much like him,'' the 41-year-old Ewing was saying after the show the other night in Bobo's, the restaurant next to the theater. ''He was taller, and his fighting weight was usually 210. I'm 6 feet 2 to his 6 feet 3, and 210.

''I let my hair grow a little for the role, and I shaved off my mustache,'' the actor continued. ''I work out aerobically whenever I can. But those are the only changes I've made for the part.''

He started thinking about doing a play about Ali's life back in 1987, shortly after he moved to New York (he's from Minneapolis), and he was sitting in his apartment in Brooklyn waiting for the phone to ring with a job offer.

''When I was still back home,'' he said, ''I was asked to take a role as him in a play called The Last Champ, but I hesitated because I didn't think I was right.

''But I was talked into it, and the response was very good. It made me think about doing a one-man show about him. I didn't know of any scripts, so I figured I'd have to be the one to write one. I spent every chance I had over the next eight months in the library, doing research.''

Ewing said he soon realized he didn't know anything about structuring a play. Finally, a friend told him about Graydon Royce, a newspaper editor in Minneapolis who has written plays. They talked over the phone, and in 1988 he moved back to Minneapolis and they collaborated.

''He's white, I'm black, so we had two very different perspectives on Ali, both valid,'' Ewing noted. ''In the process, we'd both write. He'd write something, I'd write something, and then we'd talk about them both.

''I wanted the play to be a spiritual journey, because Ali is a very spiritual man, very religious, and I understand that. I'm a member of the Baha'i faith. In a way, this play has been a spiritual journey for me, too.

''We finally got around to performing it for the first time in '89, and we learned a lot from that. It's very different now. And we took it down to Louisville, so Ali's mother and brother could see it, too.

''Anyhow, I began sending out scripts, and finally, the Hudson Guild theater here in New York called and said they'd like to put it on. So I got a plane ticket, and was all packed and ready to go. Just hours before I was to get on the plane, I got another call. The theater had closed.''

Undaunted, the actor stuck to his itinerary: ''I came anyway, and started using phones to see if I could interest someone in the play. Eric Krebs (owner and manager of the Houseman) said he'd let me have a reading and if I could keep an audience interested, he'd see about getting it on.

''I called everyone I knew, got the place filled up for the reading and it went very well. We did it also in a theater in New Brunswick, N.J., changing it, tightening it, all that. It's quite different now even from then, thanks to our director, Stephen Henderson.''

That journey from theater to theater is enough to discourage anyone, but Ewing never let himself slip to that point. To keep himself in food and shelter was something else, though. According to his bio in the theater program, he has been a door-to-door salesman, painter, postal worker, writer, director. He also has been lucky enough to have a role on One Life to Live, and to do commercials.

''This play is not like a regular one-man show,'' Ewing added. ''This is more like an athletic event. The challenge comes because this is a time when everyone still knows what Ali was like.

''He hasn't come to see it yet, but he sent a letter giving his approval to it. Still, it's been a compliment to me when the people who knew the champ - his mother, brother, his daughter - come to me and say, 'Hey, man! That was Ali, all right!' ''